Birding @ Kabini

Team - Lokesh(Colleague), Sunil (Previous NTP batch) and Niranjan

Date - May 17th, 18th and 19th.

After taking 3 days leave for the elephant census, it was time again to ask for two days leave so that I could go to Kabini JLR with Sunil and Lokesh. We thought, going there on weekday would save us from the weekend crowd. But this was not the case to be, Kabini JLR sells like hotcake and it was completely booked even on a Thursday and Friday with nearly 60-70 guests. Anyways let's leave all the JLR logistics and concentrate on birds.

Just after crossing Mysore, we spotted a hornbill with some berries in it's beak perched on a tree. Upon further observation we found out the nest and the young ones in it. Around here there's a small water body and we found plenty of water birds here. We moved into the JLR property and checked into our cottage and went for a short walk around the campus and found woodpeckers, sunbirds and plenty of other birds. The highlight of the trip was a crested hawk eagle eating a giant malabar squirrel which we saw on one of the safari's.

Pics >>

The checklist is as below. Thanks to Sunil for typing the list :-)

1.Indian Grey Hornbill
2.Purple Swamp hen
3.Cattle Egret
4.Little Egret
5.Ashy wren Warbler
6.Indian Pond Heron
7.Black Ibis
8.Red headed Ibis
9.Little Cormorant
10Greater Cormorant
11.Brahminy kite
12.Pariah / Black Kite
13.River Tern
14.Grey tit
15.Flame Backed Woodpecker (M & F)
16.Brown Capped Pygmy Woodpecker
17.Common Iora
18.Scarlet Minivet (M & F)
19.Red Vented Bulbul
20.Red Whiskered Bulbul
21.Blue Parakeet
22.Rose Ringed Parakeet
23.White Cheeked Barbet
24.Loten’s sunbird (F)
25.Purple rumped Sunbird
26.Purple sunbird.
27.Black Shouldered Kite
28.Jungle Babbler
29.Common Myna
30.Jungle Myna
31.Common House Crow
32.Jungle Crow
33.Crested hawk Eagle
34.Painted Stork
35.Eurasian Spoonbill
36.Brahminy Starling
37.Pied Kingfisher
38.Common Peafowl
39.Jungle Fowl
40.Grey Heron
41.Small Green bee eater
42.Crested Serpent Eagle
43.Indian Roller
44.Spotted Dove
45.Laughing Dove
46.Racket Tailed Drongo
47.Small Blue Kingfisher
48.White breasted Kingfisher
49.Little Ringed Plover
50.Indian Bush Lark
51.Red Wattled Lapwing
52.Spot Billed Ducks
53.White Bellied Water hen
54.Malabar Pied Hornbill
55.Common House Sparrow
56.Common Cuckoo
57.House swift
58.Hoopoe
59.Snake Bird / Darter
60.Red headed Vulture
61.Indian White backed vulture
62.Common Coot
63.Yellow legged Green Pigeon
64.Imperial Pigeon
65.Chestnut headed Bee eater
66.Blue Tailed Bee eater
67.Rufus Wood pecker
68.Black Drongo
69.Rosy Starling
70.Common Hill Myna
71.Common Treepie
72.Rufus Treepie
73.Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher
74.Thick Billed Flowerpecker
75.Common Tailor bird.
76.Pied Bushchat
77.Magpie Robin

78. Open billed stork.

Birding @ kondajji

Venue - Kondajji lake, 18 kms from Davangere towards Harihara, 260 Kms from Bangalore.

Team - Niranjan n Prashanth.

Date - 29-Apr-07

The idea of bird watching in Davangere started with a invitation to my friend Naveen's wedding. A mail to JLRNTP-1 yahoogroups got a surprised reply from Karthik who started his birding hobby in Davangere. Karthik suggested two places one was Bathi kere (lake) and the other Kondajji and we chose the later. Sunday morning started of from Davangere and drove along to kondajji, on the way we saw plenty of Pond Heron's, Bulbul's, White breasted Kingfisher and Black shouldered Kite. We reached Kondajji @ 7:00 and were pleasently surprised by the amount of bird life there. For a beginner like me it was like "Birds, birds everywhere but not a clue to identify". Feathered friends here are much more shy than our Bangalore counterparts. Hence it became tough to identify many of them as they flew away even when we were at wuite a distance. We could not even make a note of the details. This place is truly a birder's paradise and many thanks to Karthik for sharing this place.

The check list is as given below and the pics are here >>

White breasted king fisher
Jungle babbler
Cattle egret
Bank Myna
Spotted dove
Pond heron
Peacock (male & female)
Little cormorant
Plover
Red vented bulbul
Red rumped swallow
Parakeet
Sunbird
Koel
Black shouldered kite
Indian robin
White browed wagtail
Paradise flycatcher
Pied king fisher
Ducks (no idea which one)
Grey heron
Common IORA (male)
Coucal
Hoopoe
Long tailed cuckoo shirke
Racket tailed drongo - Needs Verification.
Bramhini kite
Oriental magpie

Black headed Myna

Indian Treepie

Ranganthittu trip report

Hello People,

Apologies for posting the trip report a lil late. I had taken a day off from work and wanted to go out for some Bird Watching. The previous Day ( Second sunday of April ) , I met Karthik and he suggested me that I could try Ranganthittu which is about 130 kms from Bangalore, off Srirangapattana on well developed Bangalore-Mysore Highway.

I left Early in the morning and managed to reach Ranganthittu by 7.30 Am. We were at the right place on right time. I was amazed to see so much of Bird Life around. As it was a weekday, there were hardly any visitors. Me and my cousin were the Only guests there and the forest department people were really happy to welcome us !

Without wasting much of time, we hired a boat and a very experienced forest guard Venkatesh came along with us for a good 1.30 hr boat ride ! We got to know it was OBS ( Open Billed storks ) nesting season, and we could see a lot of OBS nests and chicks.. As per the policies, I dont want to share the photographs of the chicks though they were amazing to watch !

It was my first Bird watching trip after the Naturalist training camp and we could spot about 31 species in a lil over 2 1/2 hrs and the first one to be spotted was the Tickles Blue Fly Catcher. I remember me and Donkey Deepak had a good sighting of this bird in Gol Ghar ( Bannerghatta JLR Campus )

P S --> Please dont go there on public holidays and sunday's. Fair chance of spotting birds around the sanctuary but we wont get seperate boats to carefully observe water Birds.

The Photographs of this trip can be viewed here --> http://picasaweb.google.com/kj.avinash/Recent

List of Birds Spotted in Ranganthittu

Jungle Myna

Common Crow

Tickles Blue FlyCatcher

Pond Heron

Painted Stork

OBS ( Open Billed Storks )

River Terns ( there were only two of em )

Night Heron

Stone Plover

Small Egret

Cattle Egret

Large Egret

Purple Rumped Sunbird

Brahminy Kite

Little Cormorant

Fruit bat ( Not a Bird though :-) )

White Breasted KingFisher

Oriental magpie Robin

Forest Wagtail

Darter

Eurasian SpoonBill

Red Whiskered Bulbul

Asian Koel Small

Blue KingFisher

Grey Wagtail

Indian Peafowl

Common Kite

Purple SunBird

Field Guides

100 birds of Bannerghatta

Birds of Ranganthittu ( can be purchased there for 10/- )

Book of Indian Birds 13th Edition by Dr.Salim Ali ( Learning to use this )

Happy Birding ,

Avi